


a witching horse

by prototype_malice



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Cryptids, Gen, Horror, Kelpies, POV second person ish, but lowkey bc I also have anxiety, don’t accept rides from strangers kids, super short 3 am ramblings let’s goooo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25330273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prototype_malice/pseuds/prototype_malice
Summary: There are many stories told of Witchers. Of their horses, there is only one, and not so embellished or wild.Do not attempt to ride a Witcher’s horse.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	a witching horse

**Author's Note:**

> My first work in this fandom. I’ve read several of the books in Polish and seen the show, but I don’t know everything, so if anything is glaringly wrong try to forgive it?

There are many stories told of Witchers.

Some say they are demons, some say they are divine beings, some say they are what happens when you look into the void and the void looks back. It is said that their eyes are so haunting and pale because they are the sort of creatures that swallow moons, that their jaws are so set and stern because they are too animal to frown or smile or even speak, that perhaps they wear gloves always because there is so much blood they can’t wash out of their hands.

Few gossip-mongers of any townspeople have anything much to say about a Witcher’s horse. Much as the stories of the bastardized knights or the monsters turned into men are wilder and more embellished every time they’re told, there is only one story told of their horses.

Do not attempt to ride a Witcher’s horse.

Sure, they seem much like any other knight or warrior’s mount, the old woman will tell you by the fire, lulled into the ancient tale by the flickering shadows on the dusty tavern walls that remind her of wolves and beasts.

But they are not like other horses.

They are often brown in coloring, from tawny to palomino to sandy to cherry or near-black bay, and sometimes they are gleaming, enchanting white or mischievous black, or dappled with gray shadows from so much time spent in the dark. Even the chestnuts are beautiful, in the way any warrior’s horse is, toned and muscled and standing with their chests forward and their heads high. They are horses of middling luxury but excellent confirmation, the kind that cannot be bred into any nobleman’s ride.

A Witcher and his horse are alike in battle scars, for whatever one may think of the profession it’s well-known that a Witcher never leaves his horse behind. Their scars match in beast and ferocity, in age and in stories, and a wiser man could tell you which horse belongs to which companion.

No one is quite sure how it happens, just that no one tries to ride a Witcher’s horse and lives to tell the tale. It is generally implied that the horse’s master himself comes along and slays any that would dare touch his steed, and does with the body whatever it is Witchers do with the humans they kill.

And if you wander too far from the fire and the songs, a little drunken and stumbling through the cool night air? If you find your way out to the stables or some such, another traveler not lucky enough to have such an equine companion for the road?

If you hum and laugh to yourself, forget the little glisten of knowing in the old woman’s eyes who told the story in the tavern?

If you see the Witcher’s horse, a lovely mare of chestnut hues, who grazes peacefully a little ways from the main road, long reins rolled up in her saddlebags, just one greenish-gray corner visible from an upstairs window?

If you see her and think to yourself that she is a challenge, and she doesn’t so much as flick her ears as you come closer, pays no heed to the hand on her shoulder, down her flank, over her neck again?

If you chuckle like you’ve pulled one over on the big bad Witcher himself, swing up onto her back, wait for the kick and the fuss but it never comes, and laugh when you think you’ve won?

If she snorts amicably and wanders deeper into the woods, leads you to a trickling stream so dark only the moonlight can reflect in it? If she wades in so the cool water gently laps at your feet and nickers happily when it splashes softly on her flanks?

When she steps further from shore and you realize it’s less of a stream then a river, start to want to turn back, but she dunks you under and you turn, confused, trying to remember up from down, and a face almost canid, bones sticking out of her jaw, eyes glowing and wild, mane drifting eerily like something almost alive, sharp teeth cold and clean as she devours you whole and cracks up your bones?

If you wander too close to the horse, the bard and his Witcher in the tavern will know. One will show nothing but one will smile grimly, and when the old woman in the tavern tells the boys almost fall enough to be men about a witching horse, he will advise them to listen before he follows it with a rousing, upbeat song for wiser drunken men.

And if, the next morning, they three set off and Roach has something in her teeth, well.

A “horse” has got to eat, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Boom, cryptids. Bet you didn’t see that coming, did you? Please leave kudos and/or comments, constructive criticism welcome. I wrote this at 3am because a migraine was keeping me up. Good times.


End file.
